


an understanding

by CopperCaravan



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Demon Deals, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Fenera Mahariel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 23:06:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7660534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperCaravan/pseuds/CopperCaravan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For zevwarden week, day 2: AU: Mahariel is a spirit, the sort who makes contracts, but she still can't grant Zevran's wish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	an understanding

**Author's Note:**

> Note implied/stated character death, suicidal ideation, blood.

_Gather felandaris, the demon’s weed, to call them._

_Carry a treasure, that which you love most, to bargain._

_Prick your finger on the thorns, give your lifeblood, to sign your soul away._

~

_They’re gods,_ say some; _demons,_ say others.

They’ve no names, not really, though fishermen and madams and peasants give them many: wanderers, wild ones, ancients.

When he is a boy, the others tell him his mother was one of them—a wanderer made mortal by her love for a mortal man. _But spirits cannot linger in the world of mortals and her people would not have him._ She died, her spirit, every bit of her, leeched away by this world—Zevran’s world. But he clings to it—the hope that the spirits in the forest strike deals and grant wishes.

While he is still young, as innocent as an angry orphan in Antiva can be, he goes into the woods. The fisher’s wife who’d often slipped him extra bits to eat, she’d been a friend of his mother’s, she’d said. _She was beautiful, she was. Like you could see right through her, like she was made of wind and power._ It made no sense, but he’d held onto every scrap, just as he’s managed to hold so tightly to her gloves all these years, a single reminder of her pressed warm and worn against his cheek at night. A treasure. His only treasure. That which he loves most: memories of his mother borrowed from the fisher’s wife.

“My mother,” he says into the dark, trees and dampness and the smell of rotting leaves rising up around him. “I want my mother back.”

No one comes.

“I’ll give you anything,” he says, and he stabs at his fingers with the thorny stems in his hands. “I’ll do anything!”

No one comes.

“ _Please!_ ” He lays the gloves at the base of a tree, loathe to release them but so, so desperate, and he stares at the stains of his blood, on the leather and the roots and the earth. “ _Please._ ”

No one comes.

Later—much, much later—he will rise and go back to the fisher’s wife, heartbroken again, and tell her how he waited and begged and wanted. “They didn’t come,” he will say. “You were wrong; they aren’t real.”

But for now, he waits and he begs and he wants.

~

He has but one thorny stem to call them, but one tarnished earring to bargain, all the blood in his body and not an ounce of life.

The fisher’s wife, long dead now, had said they would come and they didn’t. Of all the names given them, Zevran calls them _liars._ Never out loud—say the name thrice and the devil will come—but in his head, in his heart; his belief never waned, but his anger grew. They didn’t come before.

But they must come now. _They must._

“Please,” he says, pricking his fingers, watching the blood run over palm and wrist and sleeve. “ _Please._ ”

No one comes.

“I made a mistake!” His earring—the start of the life they gave him when it ceased to be his own—pressed sharp into the meat of his hand, draws more blood. If it is blood that will bring them, that will sway them, they can have it all.

No one comes.

“Rinna! I want her back! Give her back!”

No one comes.

He screams for them ‘til he is hoarse, ‘til he is but a heap of flesh stolen and sold, thorns and blood and gasping breaths. He could die here, and he thinks that he would welcome that, that he deserves it, because there are no wild ones, no wanderers, no ancients. There is no magic and no price he can pay. He curls into himself, face pressed into the dust and dead leaves, and he waits for whatever will come, but not for magic, not for redemption.

A twig snaps. Another. “Have you come here to hunt me?”

A woman’s voice, but not the one he’s lost, not the one he came here for. He doesn’t look, doesn’t answer, until a breeze passes over him and there is a face far too close to his.

He is standing, though he didn’t rise.

“Have you come here to hunt me?” she repeats, louder, angry, fierce.

A woman, just a woman, but not just a woman at all. His mind flies back to the fisher’s wife. _Beautiful, she was. Like she was made of wind and power._ And now he understands.

He shoves his hands out to her, earring still safely in hand, felandaris lost to the forest floor, blood half-dry but he can offer more. “I came to strike a deal.”

She lifts her chin, defiant, and he feels smaller than he ever has. “I don’t make deals anymore,” she says.

“Anything,” he swears. “Anything, just bring her back.”

She seems to shrink—a gust of wind—and she is face to face with him, hardly more than just a woman after all. Her eyes, the subtle shake of her head and the line of her mouth, they tell him what he can’t hear her say. “I cannot.”

“You can! The stories, the treasures—take this.” He grabs her hand—cold, so cold, like death—and gives her the earring; it is all he has. It is _all_ he has. “Please! You must—”

“I would; I cannot. That’s not how it works.”

It can’t be true. All these years, and there’s no going back. His hands fall to his sides. “Just take me then; do as you will. I don’t care.”

She is quiet. Everything is quiet.

And then: “I had a knight once. He traded himself for... it doesn’t matter. I told him not to, but he did and now he’s gone. Is that what you want?”

Two losses between them; perhaps it runs in the blood—her, his mother, him. Perhaps they simply cannot keep.

“I don’t want anything anymore.”

“You have to make a wish,” she says, cold hands taking his. The earring pressed between them, drawing blood from them both. “You have to want something.”

“Then give me something to want. That is my wish.”

He means it to fall flat, a jest, empty words. But she smiles, thoughtful, and tilts her head. “A fine wish,” she says, and he is more afraid than he has ever been because he doesn’t want to want, but he does.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna leave it for now, for the theme week, but I'm real tempted to come back to this and actually develop it. Any interest in that at all?


End file.
